by Lee Bacon
Instead of clutching the clone’s back, I’d hitched a ride on nFinity.
We rose into the air, high enough for me to survey the scene below. It looked like the rest of the team had gained the upper hand. An entire group of Multipliers was sprawled out, unconscious, in the street beside a glowing Sophie. Milton had captured a couple more in another of his nets.
Just as the police moved in to make arrests, the clones began to vanish. One moment they were there, and the next … gone. Except for one: a single purple and black supervillain, racing through an intersection. Behind him, Miranda was in pursuit.
“Over there.” I pointed at the chase. “That must be the real Multiplier. All the other clones just disappeared.”
I held tight as nFinity steered in their direction, flying past a bright array of advertisements, and twisting between buildings. But by the time we reached Miranda, Multiplier was gone.
nFinity and I landed on the sidewalk beside Miranda. Even after releasing my grip and standing on steady ground, my legs still felt wobbly and my heart hammered in my chest.
“What happened?” nFinity asked.
“I lost him.” Miranda stomped a foot against the sidewalk. “He escaped in a cab.”
I looked out at the street, a flood of yellow cabs streaming away from us. When I turned back the way we’d come, I flinched. Hordes of people were rushing in our direction. This time, it wasn’t Multiplier and his clones, though. These people had microphones and cameras.
We were being mobbed by journalists.
I assumed they wanted to talk to nFinity. He was the famous one, after all. But as the journalists neared, it looked like they had someone else in their sights.
Me.
A video camera jammed into my shoulder. A microphone nudged my nose. Questions came at me from all directions.
“Where’d you learn to ride a clone on a jet pack?”
“Who designed your uniform?”
“You saved nFinity’s life. How does that feel?”
The light of a camera’s flash blinded me. I looked to nFinity and Miranda for help, but they’d vanished in the crowd.
One of the journalists pushed in close, holding out a tape recorder. “Who are you?” she yelled. “What’s your name?”
Cameras hovered around me like unblinking eyes. All of a sudden, my uniform felt like it was squeezing me too tightly, suffocating me. I needed to catch my breath, I needed to sit down, I needed to get away from all this. But there was nowhere to go. Reporters were everywhere, crowding me on all sides.
The question came again, from more of the journalists this time. Everyone wanted to know—
“What’s your name?”
My memory skipped back to the ride over here in the hover SUV. Opening the little white envelope, pulling out a card. But I was so flustered, the only name that I could remember was “Fuzz.”
That couldn’t be the name. Could it?
A microphone poked me in the chin. “My name is …” The word “Fuzz” kept repeating itself in my head, like a demented pep rally cheer.
Fuzz, Fuzz, Fuzz …
“I—uh … I don’t have a name.”
This drew some curious looks from the crowd. Luckily, Gavin stepped in before I had to face any further questioning.
“We’re gonna have to put the questions on hold for now, folks,” he said. “If you’d like to request an interview with this fantastic new superheroic talent, please feel free to contact me.”
Like magic, Gavin produced a stack of business cards from behind his back. He tossed them out to the journalists and cameramen as if throwing crumbs to a cluster of pigeons. During the scramble to pick up his cards, Gavin led me firmly out of the group toward the SUV that was hovering a few feet away.
“I don’t know what happened back there,” I said. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Gavin glanced down at me, a knowing grin flashing across his face. “You’re about to be the most famous kid on earth.”
19
Everyone else was already in the SUV by the time I rushed inside.
“Somehow I just knew it was Multiplier,” Miranda said as we lifted off. “I mean—the real Multiplier. His thoughts were the most focused. I picked up on the other clones too—but their thoughts were dimmer. With some of them, I could barely Sense their thoughts at all. Each clone he created was weaker than the previous one.”
“It’s like making a copy of a copy of a copy,” Brandy said. “Each new version is a little farther from the original. A little more faded. A few extra flaws.”
So that was why some of the clones had been clumsier and stupider than others. Multiplier only cloned himself the first time. After that, every new clone was a weaker copy of the previous clone.
When we arrived back at headquarters, Gavin pulled me apart from the others. “Come with me. We’ve gotta get you ready for the first round of solo interviews.”
“You mean—like … alone?” I asked.
Trace appeared out of midair beside us, snickering. “That’s usually what ‘solo’ means.”
“Can’t we bring in the others? We’re a team, right?”
“There’ll be time for them later,” Gavin said. “Right now, I’ve got a hundred journalists dying to talk to you one-on-one. Just look at the press you’re getting.”
Gavin reached into his jacket and pulled out a tablet computer. Tapping the touch screen, he flipped the tablet around and showed me the website for the New York Gazette. In the center of the screen was a photo of me in my uniform, riding across Times Square on the back of a clone in a jet pack.
Above the photo was a headline:
Who Is the Nameless Hero?
“Every newspaper, blog, magazine, and TV show in the world is talking about you,” Gavin said. “And they’re all calling you the same thing.”
“The Nameless Hero.” The words sounded bizarre coming out of my mouth.
“It’s got a nice ring to it, huh?” Gavin smiled down at me. “Creates an aura of mystery around you. The media loves that kind of junk! And now we’ve gotta give them what they want. You.”
My stomach performed a somersault. My whole life, I’d done everything possible to avoid attention. Living under a secret identity, changing towns every couple of years. The last time I’d had to give a class presentation, I’d been so nervous that I’d nearly thrown up on the overhead projector. And now I was getting that same queasy feeling again. Except this time, it was like I was being asked to do my class presentation in front of the entire world. While wearing spandex tights.
I wondered whether my utility belt came with a barf bag.
“Don’t sweat it so much, kid.” Gavin patted me on the shoulder. “You handled a supervillain and his clones. I think you’ll be able to deal with a journalist or two.”
“Yeah, but at least I could use my spontaneous combustion on the supervillain,” I muttered.
Gavin led me into the conference room, instructing me to take a seat. “I’ll bring in the first interview,” he said.
On his way out the door, Gavin nearly collided with Milton and Sophie. Milton was carrying a tray of food, and Sophie waved at me through the doorway. I tried to wave back, but Gavin blocked my view.
“Hey, Gavin,” I heard Sophie say. “Is it all right if we talk to Joshua for a few minutes?”
“I’m afraid the Nameless Hero doesn’t have time right now,” Gavin said.
Milton looked confused. “The Nameless What?”
“We’re going to have journalists visiting headquarters soon,” Gavin said in a strict tone. “It’s important that you stick to the official names. Got it?”
“I thought Joshua’s official name was Fuzz.”
“We’ll be more careful,” Sophie said quickly. “Do you mind if we just drop off this food for him, then?”
Gavin wasn’t budging. “The Nameless Hero will be receiving a private meal,” he said.
“A private meal?”
“
Now you really must be going. We have a busy schedule.”
Gavin ushered Milton and Sophie away from the conference room.
While I waited, Brandy delivered my meal on a silver platter. Gavin’s Sensers must’ve done some more digging around in my brain, because Brandy brought the same meal my parents let me have for my birthday every year. A hamburger with no tomato, extra pickles, and Swiss cheese grilled into both buns, along with a side of extra-crispy french fries.
“Gavin wanted to reward you for your outstanding performance this morning,” Brandy said, setting down the silver platter in front of me.
My mouth watered. Maybe if I concentrated really hard, someone would bring out an ice-cold glass of Dr Pepper too.
“I was wondering,” I said between bites. “How’d you and Gavin know so much about Multiplier?”
All the color drained from Brandy’s face. The corners of her eyes creased with concern. She stared down at the table for a long time before replying.
“You remember how I met Gavin and Trace, right?”
“Sure. You and Trace were in a superhero group that Gavin organized.”
“That’s right. Well, Multiplier was on the X-Treme Team with us.”
I dropped a handful of fries. “So before Multiplier was a supervillain, he was a hero?”
Brandy nodded. “There were four of us. Trace, Multiplier, me, and—one other member.”
There was something strange about the way Brandy had left off the last person’s name. As if the memory of it were too painful to say out loud.
“We didn’t have it nearly as good as you guys,” Brandy went on. “No state-of-the-art underground facility for us. We trained in an abandoned airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere. At least until we became famous. Then Gavin moved us into fancy hotels, got us working with private trainers. But the funny thing is, when I look back on it now, it’s not the celebrity status that I miss, or the free shopping sprees. It’s those early days. The four of us, just hanging out all day, training together.”
“Then why’d you guys break up?” I asked.
Brandy sighed. “Once we got famous, things changed. We were young. We didn’t know how to handle the attention, the money. Fights would break out in the group. Anger over who got the most media coverage, who landed the best endorsement deal. Multiplier was the worst. He couldn’t stand when someone else got more attention than he did. He became violent, unpredictable. And then—”
Brandy paused. She swallowed a sob and looked right at me, her green eyes blazing as she spoke.
“And then Multiplier killed one of us.”
It felt like someone had turned down the temperature in the conference room. So that was what had happened to the fourth member of the group. And that was why Brandy couldn’t bear to say the name out loud. Because the person had been murdered. And Multiplier was the murderer.
Fighting back tears, Brandy told me the rest of the story. By the time Multiplier’s crime had been discovered, he’d vanished. Fallen off the map completely. Gavin and Trace had assumed he was dead. For fifteen years nobody had heard anything from him.
Until today.
Now I understood why Brandy and Trace had acted the way they had when they’d first realized it was him. Like they’d seen a ghost. Multiplier had been missing all those years. And then suddenly he was back with a new look and a new career path.
He’d gone supervillain all the way.
My thoughts scattered at the sound of the door opening. Gavin stepped into the conference room. He was escorting a woman in a blindfold.
20
“Okay, you can take off the blindfold,” Gavin said.
Ripping the covering from her eyes, the woman glared at Gavin. She had lurid red hair and matching lipstick. “Was that really necessary?” she demanded.
“Can’t have you telling your readers where our facility is located, now, can we?”
The woman huffed. “And that roller-coaster ride you put me through?”
Gavin examined his fingernails. “Security measure.”
“So where’s the kid, Gav?” The woman’s voice rose to an aggravated squeak. “After everything you just put me through, he’d better be—”
Whirling away from Gavin, she noticed me for the first time. Her angry expression changed instantly into a broad grin.
“Well, hello! You must be the Nameless Hero!”
I nodded, even though it still felt weird to hear someone refer to me that way.
“It’s so nice to meet you!” The woman tottered across the room, her high-heeled shoes clicking on the floor. “I’m Tiffany Cosgrove. Staff writer at Super Scoop magazine.”
My parents despised Super Scoop. They said it was full of lies and worthless gossip. And it probably didn’t help last year when Super Scoop published a cover story on whether my mom’s uniform had a “baby bump.”
And now here I was—in the same room as a woman who worked for Super Scoop, about to conduct an interview.
At least I wasn’t alone. Brandy had left, but Gavin was still in the room with us. He plopped into a chair in the corner. Tiffany Cosgrove settled into her own seat, flashing me another bright red smile.
“The way you handled yourself this morning was very impressive,” she said.
“Oh, thanks,” I replied. “It was mostly luck, though.”
“Such humility from a boy of such talent! But let’s get real. You jumped off a ten-story platform, risking your life to save a member of your group. You landed on the back of Multiplier’s clone and used it to fly across Times Square. And then you rescued nFinity from getting killed.”
Everything she was saying was technically true, but it wasn’t like I’d actually meant for any of that to happen. I’d been able to save Sophie only because of the ropes hanging from the Captain Justice billboard. I’d had no idea that I could control the clone when I’d jumped onto its back. And when I “rescued” nFinity, I probably should’ve ended up as a skid mark in the middle of Times Square.
I tried to say all this, but Cosgrove interrupted me with one tap of a red fingernail against the conference table. “A tourist with a camera recorded everything. The video has already gone viral.”
I couldn’t feel the chair underneath me any longer. According to Tiffany Cosgrove, I was exploding across the Internet as we spoke. Within minutes of the fight in Times Square, the Nameless Hero had become the most common search term on Google. There was already a Wikipedia page.
“We’re completely scrapping our next issue of Super Scoop,” Cosgrove went on. “nFinity was going to be on our cover. Now we want you.”
This was all moving way too fast. The Nameless Hero seemed unreal. A made-up character. How could all this possibly have anything to do with me?
“I have a few questions that I think might interest our readers.” Cosgrove reached into her handbag and removed a little metallic device that she set down on the table. A tape recorder. “Shall we begin?”
“Uh …”
“Excellent.” Cosgrove pressed the button on the tape recorder, and a red light signaled that it was on. “So … tell me about the moment when you decided you wanted to be in a superhero group. Was it a dream your entire life?”
“Well …” My eyes flashed over to the tape recorder. The glowing red light seemed to be staring back at me. “I never really wanted to be in a superhero group. I always just figured I’d be a normal kid. But everyone’s really nice here, and it’s been a fun experience so far.”
“And how does it feel to be a part of a team that includes nFinity?”
“It’s great. He’s an amazing superhero.”
“So it must be a major thrill to know that you saved his life this morning.”
“A thrill? No, I just—”
“But don’t you also worry about how you upstaged him? After all, you’re younger and less experienced. And yet you swooped in to rescue him while also single-handedly stopping the villain who’s been vandalizing the nation’s most preciou
s landmarks. That kind of display would make anyone jealous.”
“I don’t think nFinity is jealous. And I never meant to—to—” I stuttered to a halt. The light of Cosgrove’s tape recorder seemed to be glowing brighter, piercing my vision. “Look, I didn’t single-handedly do anything. We’re a team.”
“Of course, of course.” Cosgrove winked at me like we’d just shared a secret. “But I want to go back to this power struggle between you and nFinity.”
“Power struggle?”
“Are there any hard feelings now that you’ve clearly grasped the leadership role? And how do you think the others in the group feel? Are they taking sides, forced to choose between you and nFinity?”
The room pressed in on me. I didn’t know what to say anymore. No matter how I answered, Cosgrove would twist my words into knots.
I glanced at Gavin, but he was frantically punching an email into his phone.
“Why don’t we move on?” Cosgrove prompted. “During the fight in Times Square, you and the clone you were riding knocked a billboard of Captain Justice off a building. Is it true that you targeted the Captain Justice advertisement as a way of showing that you’re the hottest new superhero in town—not him?”
“What? No!”
“So then why’d you do it?”
“To get away from the clones that were trailing me!”
“But there are hundreds of advertisements in Times Square. And you just happened to knock over the one with Captain Justice’s face on it. Seems like a pretty big coincidence to me. You’re telling me you didn’t even see who was on the billboard when you slammed into it?”
“Well, no—”
Cosgrove tapped on the table with a fingernail again. “So you knew it was a Captain Justice billboard? And you knocked it loose anyway?”
“I guess.”
“Interesting.” Cosgrove clicked the button on the tape recorder, and the red light went out. She dropped the recorder back into her handbag. “I think our readers are going to find the cover story on the Nameless Hero very enlightening.”
I scratched under my mask, confused. “Is that it?”
